Q&A with children's author, Sally Barton!

1. Your first children's book, Something Terrible: Tim Tie-Your-Shoelaces, is a funny, zany chapter book for young readers. And the first in a series with two more titles after it. How did you come to write your debut children's book? 

I came up with the idea when I was tutoring a boy who was a reluctant reader. I was telling him about my granddaughter who had tripped over her shoelaces (luckily unhurt) and we began to talk about what 'terrible silly things' that could have happened.  Although my student didn't enjoy reading he loved being 'told' stories so I came up with Tim Tie Your Shoelaces and, as happens when my slightly wacky imagination gets hold of something before long, Becky Brush Your Hair, then Wanda, and Sam soon followed, with Daisy and Elliot works in progress. 

I am an unashamed word nerd and love words and word rules, and word origins and so on. What  I found that I wanted in these stories was apart from them being rather ridiculous, I really wanted to introduce a wider vocabulary to the reader, while keeping the content suitable for the younger advanced readers who might not come across an advanced vocabulary in the books written for their age. However, I also want to attract the older reluctant readers through varied font size and relatable stories, who too may not be exposed to an expanded vocabulary, as they tend to stick to books that do not challenge them.

2. What was your journey of having Tim Tie-Your-Shoelaces go from story idea to revising and rewriting then submitting to having it picked up for publication? 

Much to my delight (and disbelief), I had won a competition with another book, Goodnight Sheep, and part of the prize was mentorship with the wonderful Clare Halifax at Walker Books (amazing!) She had shown interest in publishing Goodnight Sheep; however, at that point, I had already signed a contract with Fremantle Press (unbelievable) who I had sent Goodnight Sheep to and promptly forgot about as I never dreamt they would call me. Clare asked if I had anything else on the go and I said, yes, I had two early readers completed

I had written Tim and Becky almost a year before it was picked up and had done the usual write, read, put away, reread edit, repeat for about 6 months before then, never dreaming these tales would go anywhere other than live in my laptop, where all my stories live. I was still in shock from a: winning the competition and b: being offered a contract with Fremantle Press when I was asked to send Tim and Becky to Walker Books and was offered a contract a few months later.

3. You have also got a picture book Goodnight Sheep. Can you tell us how this book came to be? 
The idea for Goodnight Sheep came to me when one night I couldn’t sleep and my husband said casually ‘count sheep.’ This made my somewhat odd imagination wonder ‘what if the sheep don’t want to be counted and this led to another thought and then another, ending with the question, would a child’s sheep behave if they were to count them? When it came to Lilly May’s sheep, apparently not. This particular child’s sheep wanted nothing to do with being counted, preferring mischief and chaos over sleep, until finally exhaustion wins.
It took about six months to write Goodnight Sheep with a lot of input and critiquing from some great people.

​4. Where do you write? 
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Having five children, a writing space WAS no more than a desk tucked into a corner and a computer at my disposal when everyone went to bed.
​But that was fine, and I wrote two 80, 000-word novels that way, one published in 2023 under a pen name.
Now my children are all adults, and I have a whole room to myself that is filled with the things I love and that are important to me.
On the wall hangs the very first story I wrote called Animal Caper. I wrote it when I was ten for a writing competition advertised in the local newspaper and won first prize.
On a chair sits a bear who was given to me when I was born. He has one eye, a split in a seam and has lost his growl, however like me has all his hair and his limbs are still attached.

5. You have the third book in the Something Terrible series (Wanda-Wear-Your-Glasses!) coming out later this year. Is there anything else you are working on, or something in the pipeline? What do you foresee wanting to do next in the children's book world? 
 
I’m always thinking (mostly when I am meant to be sleeping) and jotting down ideas. Sometimes there too many ideas and I get a bit lost with which one I am going to work on first. So in saying that I am working on more books for the Something Terrible series but also looking at some partially non-fiction tales told in the same ridiculous way that I can't seem to get away from. I’m also working on another Sheep story with a Christmas theme and one about aliens, lemonade and a rogue carrot, another about some missing dogs and re-writing a story about a pig and some wishes.
I am hoping in the near future to run some writing workshops for children who wish to write but feel that their spelling will let them down. I want to encourage the idea that good story telling comes from the imagination and not from how well someone spells.
 
6. You have had your first few children's books published in such a short time frame. What has been the most exciting, or surprising, part of this whirlwind time for you?
 
I guess for all novice writers the most surprising was that I had arrived, I was ‘good enough.’ Although I loved my stories, and my family thought they were pretty good, I never dreamt, even though it was my long held dream, that I would be published as I knew it was a hard industry to get into. I am still waiting for the sense that I am an ‘imposter’ to go away. I am so honoured to be asked to sign a book but the part I love the most of all is when I am told a child really loved my book, as that was the whole point in the first place.

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